HINGHAM EDITORIAL: Honoring Seaman Herbert L. Foss, at last

Bill Harris spoke for the Foss family. “I think the naming is a great thing not only for my family but for the town, state and country,” Harris said in an email. “Seaman Foss's exploits off Cuba in 1898 is a great American Naval story.”

Herbert L. Foss, who was born on Oct. 12, 1871, in Belfast, Maine, enlisted in the U.S. Navy on Jan. 31, 1897, 16 months before the U.S. would officially enter the Spanish American War. He was a...

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About Herbert L. Foss

Herbert L. Foss, who was born on Oct. 12, 1871, in Belfast, Maine, enlisted in the U.S. Navy on Jan. 31, 1897, 16 months before the U.S. would officially enter the Spanish American War. He was assigned as a seaman on the light cruiser USS Marblehead, and on May 11, 1898, Seaman Foss and his shipmates, while engaging the enemy off the northwest coast of Cuba, snared the main communications cable; pulled it over the bow of their boat, and with great difficulty, and while under intense enemy fire, somehow managed to sever the cable. Seaman Foss actually finished the job with a simple hacksaw. Many of his shipmates were killed or wounded during this action, but they had successfully disrupted communications between Cuba and Spain.

The war officially ended Dec. 10, 1898, and for his "extraordinary bravery and coolness under fire" on the 11th of May 1898, Seaman Herbert Lewis Foss was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest honor.

After the war, Herbert Foss, looking for work, found himself in Hingham where citizen Foss worked for a number of years at the ammunition depot before taking a job with the town where he eventually became the superintendent of the Fort Hill Cemetery. He died on Sept. 1, 1937.

The Town of Hingham buried Herbert Foss in the largest military funeral the town had ever seen. Herbert Foss’s casket was carried through the streets of Hingham onboard a 110th Cavalry Caisson drawn by six horses.

In January we wrote an editorial about the town installing a permanent memorial to honor its Medal of Honor recipient, Herbert L. Foss, a veteran of the Spanish-American War. We supported plans to name the inner Hingham Harbor area “The Herbert L. Foss Waterfront Park.”

We also said while there were a few steps ahead – including the approval of Town Meeting — we didn’t think anyone needed a crystal ball to see that this was one vote that should go through without controversy.

We were wrong — not in our support of naming inner harbor after Foss – but in our view that the approval would sail through!

Controversy ensued as only it can here in Hingham. Internet searches turned up more Medal of Honor recipients connected to Hingham. It was also reported that Wilmon W. Blackmar, a Civil War hero and recipient of the MOH, married into the well-known Brewer family in 1880 and spent 25 summers on World’s End.

In our opinion that information did not change the fact that Foss should be honored with a permanent memorial. But plans to name the inner harbor after Foss were put on hold as the Foss Memorial Committee had the new charge of looking into establishing a Medal of Honor Park at a location to be determined.

So we are happy to report that, thanks to state Senator Robert Hedlund, the new commuter boat terminal at the Shipyard is going to bear Foss’s name. There will also be appropriate markers explaining Foss’s heroic acts. The naming, which is now a matter of state law, will not have to go to Town Meeting.

Naming of the new terminal received the enthusiastic support of Jim Claypoole, who is chairman of the Hingham Veterans Council and a former member of the Foss Memorial Committee. The Foss family is also pleased.

Bill Harris spoke for the Foss family. “I think the naming is a great thing not only for my family but for the town, state and country,” Harris said in an email. “Seaman Foss’s exploits off Cuba in 1898 is a great American Naval story.”